During our time in the Chitawan National Park in Nepal, we rode an elephant in the jungle looking for wildlife. You soon get used to the rhythmic lurch forward with each step. It is a great way to travel through the forest. Riding elephants is less culturally accepted now days (Western culture that is). One lodge in the park uses a PC alternative that keeps the elephants employed. Instead of riding on the elephant, the tourists walk along forest paths between two elephants. This will work fine until the tigers learn to attack suddenly from the side. My advice is to stay in the middle of the group.
In the jungle we heard the iconic cry of the peacock in its natural habitat. We were ready to see a tiger behind every bush. Once while watching a sambar deer, a langur monkey announced that a tiger was near. It fled and we did not see the tiger. We saw many jungle fowl, the ancestor of the domestic chicken. They look a lot like the bantam roosters we raise when I was growing up. Do you know an eight year old that can tell you every species of crocodile? Tell him or her that I fulfilled a lifelong dream and saw a gharial.
Where we stayed the local community would not allow me to walk the river bank and fish even though they do the same thing as well as gather firewood in the forest. They said that they are willing to take the risk, but I was not allowed to. The men who drive tourists around are not afraid of tigers. It is the elephants that cause trouble. An old tusker named Durvbey is notorious for hitting vehicles.
Over 3 days we saw: 9 Asian rhinos, wild boar, chital deer, Hog deer, barking deer, sambar deer, 1 python, 1 mongoose, jungle fowl, peafowl, rhesus monkeys, langar monkeys, 2 gharial crocodiles
Adventures in Suburbia 